37 Whistleblowers You Can Follow On Twitter

National security attorney Jesselyn Radack, who has NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden as a client, was actually a whistleblower herself. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Edward Snowden joined Twitter on September 29 and already has 1.37 million followers and counting. Just seven tweets by the famed NSA whistleblower almost immediately prompted George Pataki to call for Twitter to ban the account, though Twitter does not appear to be taking the bait. It’s worth noting, however, that Snowden isn’t the only whistleblower on Twitter. Here’s a rundown of 36 others.

A former military analyst for RAND Corporation, Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, a secret 7000-page account of the Vietnam War, to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and 17 other newspapers in 1971. The Pentagon Papers showed that the Johnson Administration "systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress,”the New York Times reported. Although Ellsberg faced multiple felony charges, his case was dismissed in 1973 due to what the judge called "improper government conduct shielded so long from public view.” Ellsberg is the author of several books, including Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.

Frank Snepp was a CIA analyst at the US Embassy in Saigon. In 1980, he published a book called Decent Interval about the failures of national security services to prepare for the fall of Saigon. Although Snepp redacted names, methods and sources, he was still prosecuted for violating his non-disclosure agreement, and lost income and royalties from the book. He is now an award-winning investigative reporter.

In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu leaked information about Israel’s nuclear program to British media, and spent 18 years in prison, 11 of which were spent in solitary confinement. He is not allowed to own a cell phone, enter internet chat rooms, have contact with foreigners or leave Israel. He is currently under six months of house arrest for supposedly breaking the terms of his probation.

A former technician at Genisco Technology, Roland Gibeault met with the FBI and Defense Criminal Investigative Service while still working at the company. He then filed a qui tam lawsuit against Genisco for falsifying test data on key military components in 1988. Three executives ultimately went to prison. Although Gibeault was fired from his job, he did receive $131,250 from the $725,000 fine the company paid.

In 1996, while Vice President of Research and Development at Brown and Williamson, Jeffrey Wigand admitted that the company purposely manipulated nicotine levels in cigarette smoke to increase addiction. He was fired from his job. Wigand is the subject of the 1999 film The Insider, portrayed by Russell Crowe.

In 1997, David Shayler and Annie Machon resigned from MI5 to blow the whistle on the UK Secret Service for various criminal acts, such as attempting to assassinate Muammar Gaddafi without the permission of the foreign secretary, illegally tapping phones, and not preventing the Israeli embassy bombing in London despite being aware that it was going to happen in advance. After revealing information to the Mail on Sunday, Shayler and Machon went on the run to Utrecht, the Netherlands and France. The British government’s extradition request was not granted, but Shayler eventually returned to the UK to face trial. He was sentenced to six months in prison. Machon published the book Spies, Lies and Whistleblowers: MI5, MI6 and the Shayler Affair. She is now the co-director of Code Red and European Director of LEAP.

A former security industry executive and independent financial fraud investigator, Harry Markopolos identified Bernie Madoff as a fraud in 1999 and repeatedly tipped off the Security and Exchanges Commission in 2000, 2001, and 2005. He is the author of No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller.

A former senior policy analyst at the Environmental Protection Agency, Marsha Coleman-Adebayo brought attention to the environmental damage and dangerous conditions faced by African workers in South Africa due to a U.S. company mining vanadium. The EPA did not respond, so she told other organizations. She also filed a lawsuit against the agency, and a federal jury found the EPA guilty of violating her civil rights on the basis of race, gender, and a hostile work environment. She worked from home when diagnosed with hypertension during the legal proceedings, but was eventually placed on unpaid leave when she did not comply with orders to return to the office after five years of telecommuting. Coleman-Adebayo is the founder of the No FEAR Coalition. Her work has led to the passage of the “Notification of Federal Employees Anti-discrimination and Retaliation Act,” or No FEAR Act, the first whistleblowing legislation of the 21st century. She is the author of No Fear: A Whistleblower's Triumph Over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA.

Along with Jean-Charles Rielle, Pascal Diethelm revealed the ties between environmental health professor Ragnar Rylandar and the tobacco industry back in 2001. Apparently Rylandar received payment from the tobacco industry for 30 years, and pretended he was an independent scientist, fraudulently publishing articles that minimized the effects of secondhand smoke. All accusations were proved true in court.

A former ethics adviser to the United States Department of Justice, Jesselyn Radack blew the whistle on the FBI when it interviewed John Walker Lindh without an attorney and again when it tried to suppress the information. In retaliation, Radack received a poor performance review despite a merit raise the year prior, and was advised to find another job or else the review would be placed in her file. Her emails about Lindh were initially suppressed after a court order for all of the Justice Department's internal correspondence about his interrogation. She went to great lengths to assure that they would be included, even releasing to Newsweek emails she believed were purged. This led to a criminal investigation and the government sending letters to bar associations in jurisdictions where she was licensed to practice law, referring her for a possible ethics violation, which kept her from finding work for years. Radack now represents whistleblowers and journalists as a national security and human rights attorney. She is the author of TRAITOR: The Whistleblower and the “American Taliban.” Until recently, she served as the director of National Security and Human Rights at the Government Accountability Project. She is now heading up a new Whistleblower and Source Protection Program (WHISPeR) at ExposeFacts.org.

A former VP of Corporate Development at Enron, Watkins testified her role in the Enron Fraud before the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate in 2002. She alerted the CEO at the time of accounting regularities back in 2001, but did not report it to the government. Watkins is the author of Power Failure: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron.